JC spotted Erica lurking by the front door of the house. That made some sense: going inside would be uncomfortable, but she could bear it in case of an emergency. She flashed JC a smile and gestured invitingly towards the door.
JC tracked Niko to the dining room.
Lying on a towel on the table was the weird creature they’d found—the first one, at least. It was flailing madly, unable to escape the silk net around it.
Niko was digging objects out of his backpack, leaving them in a jumble at the other end of the table, while Des’ yellow eyes never wavered from the captive. Des wasn’t wearing her sarong; JC spotted it draped over the back of a chair. She made a mental note to wash it.
“Welcome back,” Niko said, pulling another impossible-to-identify item from the pack, then dropping it with the rest. “I need your help. I’m going to dissect that thing and I want you here. Was there anything at the Gate?”
“Yes,” JC said. “Bad news, mostly.”
“How so?”
“Another of those things. Well, one to start off with. While Zach was hunting it, he watched it split into two. They got bigger fast.”
Niko’s head snapped up, shaggy multi-coloured eyebrows drawn inward. “There are more and they replicate?”
“Yes. I think it’s unlikely we’ve got all of them. Zach’s tossing the other pair into one of the cells.”
Des flattened her ears. “Moarr?” It was a growl more than a word.
“Good place,” Niko said. “Des, I think we’ve got this, you look like you want to go check. Okay, this could be worse than I thought. I was thinking that this one was a lone spy that would eventually be recalled to collect the data. If they’re replicating, that opens up a whole host of other possibilities and puts sabotage firmly back on the table. Possibly assault but I still doubt that. I need to see what’s inside this one.” Before he finished, Des was gone.
“Alive?” JC said.
“It’s not alive, I promise. No trace of sentience, completely unable to feel or experience anything. It has some sort of sensory input-response programming to keep it moving, that’s all. Think of it as a semi-magical, semi-organic robot. Do you really think I would vivisect something alive and suffering?”
JC shrugged. “Didn’t think you were a wizard. I’m trying not to make assumptions these days.” She had added Niko being more or less a wizard to her long list of ‘Recent Events and Revelations, Feelings About, Complicated and/or Ambivalent.’ She hadn’t had much time to make an appreciable impact on the list, but she was reasonably sure she didn’t outright resent Niko for keeping secrets. That was, after all, understandable. She did feel uncharacteristically uncomfortable, though, despite never having felt like that before with Niko, and she couldn’t decide what the source was.
Niko rolled his eyes. “Oh, give me a break. I realize that Phrixos would make any group look bad by association, but maybe you could, oh, not make broad generalizations about people who only have one thing in common? There are some nasty names for that kind of thing. Are you going to help me take this thing apart so we can figure out what it is or not?”
“Of course I am. Please tell me you aren’t planning to use the good kitchen knives. There aren’t that many of them.”
“No, Suzi checked an out-building and found a utility knife, and she thinks the one with the hooked blade is a linoleum knife.” He nodded towards a pair of tools lying together, beside the grey glasses case JC had seen previously. “I think I have something in here somewhere that will make it stay still...”
JC tilted her head, looking closely at the squirming thing. “It has threads on it.”
“It has what?”
“Glowing threads. Y’know, like locks and stuff do.” She’d thought she’d glimpsed them on the pair Zach had caught, but hadn’t been sure and they’d been in a hurry. Taking a longer and calmer look at this one, she could definitely see them—they were actually overlapping with and extending through the net. She reached out, delicately hooking each finger into a different thread, and began to experiment with tugging on each one individually, then in combination. The odd creature thrashed.
“Glowing threads,” Niko said. “You’re actually literally seeing the structure of the wizard spells holding a synthetic organism together? Even though this isn’t part of the house?” He snapped open the glasses case and put on the shiny copper glasses he’d worn to examine the cuffs.
“I assume that’s what they are.” JC glanced up, and found Niko watching her intently over the glasses. “I figured out the pattern in the locks in the house and where to pull to open or completely remove them. The traps around the Gate were different, and it took me a while to figure out how to disarm them. They’re not part of the house. This is completely different and I have no clue what yanking on these is going to do. You can’t see them? How can wizards do anything at all if you can’t see what you’re working with?”
“That’s a lesson for another... several other days. I really need to... no, doesn’t matter right now. Do you think you could draw it?”
“Maybe. It’s three-dee but I can try.”
“In particular, there might be a symbol of some sort. It could be helpful to see that.”
“A symbol?” JC paused in her experiments, looking it over. There were places threads touched and merged, places they wrapped and looped and slid past each other... a symbol? Carefully, she let go and rolled it over, inspecting the web of threads. “That’s the closest thing I see to a symbol, there.”
Niko shoved an old-school steno notebook and pen in her direction. “Whatever you can, please. It might help me identify it.”
JC shrugged, and did her best to reproduce the cluster of threads that didn’t match the rest. Pretending it was something for a game session helped, although the net was inconvenient and she had to twitch it several times to see past it. Niko, meanwhile, resettled the copper glasses on the bridge of his nose and examined the creature, without touching it or interfering, from multiple angles.
She pushed the notebook back. “That’s as close as I can get it.”
Niko took a look at it. “It doesn’t look familiar, but that isn’t a surprise. It does give me a place to start after we’re done here.”
JC, meanwhile, went back to testing threads.
Pulling on three at once with a slight twist led to the tadpole creature ceasing to move.
“That’s better. Can you work around my left hand?”
“Easier than working around the squirming, since I don’t seem to have the tool I thought I had. This makeshift nonsense without the right equipment is annoying.”
JC shrugged. “It’s for a couple of days. I can take you to see what the other house fae improvised over the last twenty or so local years.”
“Fair enough. I’ll stop whining.” Niko pulled on a pair of thin white gloves with coloured symbols on the backs, picked up what looked to JC like a standard box-cutter—albeit with a fairly sturdy metal handle—and began to cut Suzi’s silk out of the way. It was a job in itself, and Niko paused to check the knife and snap off the current blade in favour of a new one.
“It isn’t the knife,” JC said, using her free hand to help pull the silk taut. “Wisp silk is tougher than it looks.”
“Hm. Haven’t encountered it before. I’ll take your word for it.”
“The wisp flock gets thumped on by some faelings. Others stay on good terms so they can trade for wisp silk.”
“Are you telling me that this island has developed an economy?”
“I... suppose so, yes. Callie provides free health care, but apparently a lot of faelings give her little gifts to say thank you and they’ll all listen to her. The house fae are essentially social services, free food and beds, but it’s in the best interests of nearly anyone who acquires chicken or pigeon or fish to bring it to them. It will be shared, but it will also be cleaned and cooked properly. Everyone else has friends, allies, people they barter with. Cheating won’t work since word will get around fast, so for most, there’s a good reason to keep to your side even without any actual authority in place. There are outliers who don’t care, but even they’re unwilling to break the rules about Callie and the house fae.”
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“Seems to me that there’s far more interesting observations to be done here than whatever the hell Phrixos and company were up to. Remind me to get you to find Isabel’s journal for me. Presumably there are records somewhere of what they were up to and what they learned, but that could be anywhere and is probably hidden and protected.”
“Journals. Over seven thousand days of them. I know where they are.”
“Figured you would. Feel free to point out anything else you found of particular interest, since I’m betting you made a significant dent in the library on the ground floor and possibly anything lurking elsewhere. Okay. Let’s see what’s actually inside this thing.” Niko spread the net to either side, exposing the tadpole-like thing, which was fading slowly from yellow and brown towards the white of the towel. It was a much more gradual process than JC had seen when Des initially seized it, but possibly paralysis was a factor. “Cross your fingers that it isn’t going to start leaking god-knows-what as soon as I break the skin.”
“Liquid?”
“That’s more likely, but noxious gas isn’t impossible. I’m hoping not, obviously.”
JC shrugged. “If anything comes out, back away until we know if it’s safe. I doubt it can do me any harm. I might look like a toy, but my own skin is about the best protective gear ever. I think a gas would have to be seriously toxic to be a problem. And magic slides right off.” As near as she could tell, her sense of smell switched without conscious control between “on,” allowing her to cook properly, and “minimal,” allowing her to clean comfortably, but since even the fumes of strong chemicals caused no irritation or burning, she figured there was more happening.
“What does what you look like have to do with anything?” Niko eyed the motionless creature, then picked a spot just behind the bulbous end. JC saw him take a deep breath and hold it as he cut into the thing’s... hide? Skin? A few drops of thick brownish liquid oozed out sluggishly; Niko paused, watching it, but released that breath and went on when it seemed not to go beyond that.
“You, um, have actually looked at me?”
“Obviously. Literally every faeling is unique, as far as I understand it.” Niko glanced up from his meticulous incision to give JC a sidelong look, nearer eyebrow raised. “And?”
“My subconscious turned me into a walking sex doll.”
“And you’ve acquired the intelligence to go along with it, have you?”
“No worse than usual, I suppose, but...”
“Or a compulsive sex drive?”
“Oh, god, no.” A few curious fantasies weren’t even in the same world as Theo’s siren side.
“Lost your dexterity, your strength, the muscle memory that you’ve developed over years of cooking?” Niko used the wider, hooked linoleum knife to nudge the thick rubbery hide to either side, a bit at a time, working his way along the incision and alternating sides.
“Well, no. I’m faster and stronger with better coordination and reflexes.”
“Could’ve sworn you just mentioned an extremely practical benefit of your current skin—I’ve heard you complain about the inadequacy, discomfort, or both of most protective gear more times than I can count. I’ve seen your joints lock to keep you in one position with no fatigue at all, and there’s no problem with moving immediately, none of the strain or stiffness or cramps that even most faelings would probably experience after long enough. Also useful?”
Standing mostly still while chopping vegetables or washing dishes was certainly easier when she let everything else lock comfortably, even if she could finish things more rapidly and accurately. Actually, she was doing it right now, keeping the glowing threads motionless. She could feel it, right from the fingers of her left hand, her wrist and arm, her shoulder, her spine and pelvis and legs. None of the joints along that path would flex by a whisker until she chose to release them. “I didn’t say that there weren’t some advantages! Are you getting to a point?”
Niko shrugged. “The others all have advantages and disadvantages. Does looking sexy really strike you as being a larger disadvantage than, say, getting sleepy when the temperature drops, or having to stay near water? Any of you would be a shock for someone who has never encountered faelings, but with clothes and makeup that obscure the texture of your skin, out of the seven of you, you’re still the one who could best get away with walking down a regular street.” He prodded something inside the creature. “Something hard, there... could you pull that out?” He used his gloved hands to pull the gap open as wide as possible.
“Where... here?” JC dug into the gooey interior, feeling for the hard object Niko had found; her fingers brushed against it, and she drew it out. It was about the size of one of her gaming dice, although the edges were less regular, even under the rather viscous goop it had been swimming in.
“That. Let me see?” When JC obligingly offered it on her palm, Niko leaned closer to look. “Organogenic crystal of some sort. At least, I’m assuming it’s organogenic, since they replicate. The basic programming will almost certainly be embedded in one of these, but there might be more.”
“Do you want me to see what I can find?” She set the crystal down on the edge of the towel.
“You can probably explore by touch more accurately than I can. These are good and useful gloves but they do interfere with sensation.”
Her skin did not, and was probably better protection as well. It didn’t end just above her wrists, for example. “Are there going to be any kind of internal structures or organs? Am I going to do damage to the organization of it or something?”
“It’s a very simple synthetic organism. There’s no mouth or anal opening so it shouldn’t have a digestive tract. I doubt it was meant to last long enough for that to matter. I didn’t see a nose, so if it uses oxygen it’s presumably through its skin. There does seem to be a layer of something resembling muscle tissue immediately under the skin, but otherwise, I don’t think there’s likely to be anything to disturb. I can’t promise, obviously, since it has some mechanism for absorbing enough substance to replicate, but that’s my best guess.”
“Brain? Nervous system?” JC reached back inside with her free hand anyway. Objectively, it was disgusting, groping around blindly inside of something that had at least some semblance of life.
Her skin was intact. That certainty kept the whole experience just half a step more remote, mentally. She’d cleaned up worse, with less protection. This wasn’t worth caring about.
Besides, this thing and the rest of its kind were a potential threat to her family and a lot of victimized faelings. She had a much better idea now just what she was prepared to do, with those stakes.
“That would be the crystal. Or crystals. Like I said, not alive.”
JC made a noncommittal noise.
“The important bit,” Niko said, “is that you are still you. From my understanding of faelings, that should actually be something closer to, you are more you than previously.”
“That doesn’t really help, when you discover that the you part of that isn’t what you always thought.” She found something else hard, and fished it out to join the first. Niko’s gloved hands stayed steady, holding it open to give her access. Interestingly, the faint resistance against the threads she held in her left hand eased dramatically. “The threads just got weaker.”
He nodded once in acknowledgement. “Do you honestly think that people are, on average, all that aware of who they truly are? Most people are walking bundles of secrets. Some they deliberately hide from others, usually because they feel ashamed, whether they have any sensible reason to do so or not. The rest they hide from themselves because facing those is simply too unsettling and just might jeopardize their comfortable familiar socially-acceptable stability or their comfortable familiar internalized view of who they are.”
JC glanced up, thoughtfully. “You can create new identities and change how you look. How old are you, anyway?”
“No idea, I stopped counting. It’s hard to keep track with island timeslipping involved. Can’t recall what I originally looked like, either. Probably safe for us both to assume that I’ve lived more days than I look like I have. So you should listen to the wisdom of your elders, missy.”
JC snorted. “Right.” She knew the tone of the last sentence, despite the deadpan expression: he was teasing her. The rest had the ring of simple truth, though. “I found another one, but it’s different.”
“Different how?”
“One, it’s long and thin, although it might be another crystal anyway. Two, it’s embedded into the inside of the skin. Or muscle or whatever it is.”
“Odd. Do you need the knife?”
“No, I think I can get it with my nails. There isn’t much room to work.” She dug her fingernails underneath one narrow end, prying it out of the tissue, then switched to the other end.
“Which direction is it lying in? Front to back?”
“That would make sense, but no, it’s crosswise.” When she attacked one long side, it gave way with limited resistance, with the ends already freed. “That might be all. Give me a minute to check.” She set the long thin one next to the more compact pair and plunged her hand back inside.
Patient searching through the internal goo, even running her fingertips all over the interior surface in case of any other embedded objects, turned up no further crystals. Or, in fact, anything at all but goo. The inner surface felt different along a pair of strips on either side of the long crystal, smoother and thinner. Otherwise, the whole thing was simply a bag of viscous glop.
“That’s it. Nothing else inside.” She freed her hand, and held it over the creature, watching the goo slide off her skin and drip back into it, leaving the warm beige clear of the brownish streaks.
“Fair enough, I’ll take your word for it.”
“What now?”
“Anything diagnostic will be in those crystals. But we can’t throw this into the recycling system with the spells intact.”
JC tilted her head, regarding the creature measuringly. “Then it’s probably a good thing that they’re breaking down. The threads are getting thinner and paler and I’m sure there are fewer of them.” Cautiously, she let go of the threads, one at a time. The squirming did not resume; it lay there motionless, whatever had provided its pseudo-life no longer doing so.
“It would have been linked to one of the crystals. That’s convenient for disposal, although I’d recommend waiting until there’s no remaining trace. At that point, it’s just inert biological matter. Meanwhile we can clean up those crystals, and I’ll see what I can find out from them.”
“Just in case it liquefies or something, I want it in the sink. Don’t touch anything. I don’t want to have to wipe goo off any more surfaces than necessary.” JC waited until Niko had moved his hands, then bundled everything up on the towel. “I’ve got this.”